Monarch (The Venture Bros.)
The Monarch is one of the main characters and primary antagonist on the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros., and is a laughable parody of a supervillain who has modeled himself after the Monarch butterfly. He is voiced by Christopher McCulloch. Personality and Relationships The Monarch is Team Venture's archenemy--at least in his own mind. He overestimates his own lethality, and often takes time out to "remind" people how dangerous he is ("Home Insecurity"). When the series began, Monarch was initially portrayed as being evil yet incompetent; as the series progressed, the writers shifted his character so that, while still incompetent, his evil nature has now been replaced with vanity and bravado; he has had the opportunity on numerous occasions to significantly harm Dr. Venture, but when faced with the prospect of actually suceeding at one of his goals, he loses interest, preferring to live out an un-ending hero/villain fantasy than actually be victorious. In Tag Sale -- You're It! the Monarch manages to get into Dr. Venture's lab, only to discover how pathetic the man's efforts have been, and he nearly loses interest in his nemesis. As of the second season of the show, his hatred for Dr. Venture has never been explained; at various times, there have been hints as to what the Monarch's motivation might be (The Monarch wanted Venture's father, Jonas, to be his arch rival, but because of Jonas' death, he is living out the fantasy by proxy; Dr. Venture made fun of The Monarch's poetry in college) but the concrete reason has never been addressed. Dr. Venture himself is oblivious to the Monarch's desire to kill him, and due to the Monarch's ineptitude and lack of motivation, considers him little more than a nuisance. It is possible that there is literally no logical reason for the rivalry. Keeping with his theme, the Monarch's entire campaign against Dr. Venture is modeled around butterflies in one way or another: His base of operations is a giant, floating cocoon (the inside of which is decorated pink and purple), and all of his weaponry is modeled (often erroneously) on physical traits of butterflies. In spite of his fascination with them, The Monarch remains oblivious to the actual biology and physical capabilities of butterflies, believing them to be deadly, poisonous insects. In the first season of the show, The Monarch had a sidekick/lover named Dr. Girlfriend, a gravelly voiced woman with a striking resemblance to a young Jackie Kennedy; unlike most other characters on the show, the possibility that her voice is a result of a botched sex change operation never occurred to The Monarch. The two were assisted in their schemes by a seemingly endless supply of henchmen, most of them known by ID numbers ranging from 1-83, the rest being given designated nicknames. Their presence served as a convenient means of stress relief for the Monarch, as he was prone to kill and/or maim them when angered. In spite of The Monarch's homicidal tendencies, he and Dr. Girlfriend shared a bizarre parental relationship with the henchmen. When the Monarch doesn't abandon his plans, they end up failing anyway, for a number of reasons--amongst them henchmen incompetence, bad planning, and bizarre circumstances. Monarch opposes Hank, Dean and Brock by lieu of their being affiliated with Dr. Venture, but has realized how much neglect the boys suffer and ironically began to act as a second father to them. Early in the series, he kidnapped them and threatened to kill or torture them to harm Dr. Venture, but instead had flashbacks to his own traumatic childhood and baked the boys cookies. In another episode, having secured Hank as collateral in a hostage situation, he lets him dress up in one of his henchman costumes and play in his throne room. In the first season finale, after the boys ran away from home and were arrested, they encountered an incarcerated Monarch, who counselled them to lead clean lives and go back home. The same episode found the Monarch apparently ordering his henchmen to murder the boys, an act which he claimed was only supposed to be symbolic. The Monarch and the henchmen all greatly fear Brock, who has proven more of a worthy adversary than Dr. Venture; over the course of the series, Brock has murdered a seemingly innumerable amount of the Monarch's henchmen, and in the series premiere forced the Monarch to eat his own costume. Due to the threat Brock poses, the Monarch refers to him as "Walking Swedish Murder Machine." Despite their inherant rivalry, Brock seems to have taken a bizarre liking to the Monarch: for the Monarch's last birthday, he launched a blood-soaked raid on his secret headquarters, just so that the Monarch could try and kill him and feel like a real super villain for a day. ("Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean"). History and Activities on the Show The Monarch was the apparently only child of a wealthy couple who died when their private plane crashed in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. For months, the Monarch lived in the forest amongst a colony of monarch butterflies, which he claims adopted him. One day, however, they departed, migrating to Mexico; devestated, the Monarch hitch-hiked to the city and collected his sizable inheritance. With the money, the Monarch was able to go to college, where he shared a creative writing class with Dr. Venture; apparently, the Monarch devoted all of his assignments to butterflies. Somehwere along the way, the Monarch became fixated on becoming a supervillain; he joined the Guild of Calamitous Intent (for the health insurance) and used his vast fortune to build a giant, floating military base from which to launch his attacks on Dr. Venture. At an unspecified time in the recent past, he seduced Queen Etheria, the scantily clad sidekick of The Phantom Limb; she changed her alias to Dr. Girlfriend and became The Monarch's lover/sidekick. The two's happy relationship fell apart, however, after a tell-all book published by the Monarch's henchmen brought to light her salacious past with a variety of other supervillains. She left him and went back to The Phantom Limb, who in turn framed the Monarch for murder and had him locked up in prison so that he could have Dr. Girlfriend to himself. At the beginning of Season 2, the Monarch escaped prison and is now on a (thus far failed) quest to reunite with Dr. Girlfriend. He also for unknown reasons chose Dr. Venture for his archenemy, and attempted several odd plots against him, such as kidnapping the boys in Tijuana, lowering them into the Amazon river where he claimed a mythical species of fish would swim up their urethras,sending a henchman to use a tarantula to kill Venture in his sleep, only for an Ünderland soldier to interfere,and perhaps most bizarrely, turn Dr. Venture into a giant caterpillar. At one point, he and Dr. Girlfriend managed to sneak into the Venture compound, but were appalled by how pathetic Dr. Venture's life really was. It took an unexpected fight with security agents to get him back into his old habits, and the Monarch gave a grandoise speech on how he would still destroy Venture and used a grappling hook to get him and Dr. Girlfriend out of the lab...only to get stuck and be forced to wait out the night to avoid detection. Equipment and Abilities The Monarch has a giant flying cocoon as his base. It's extremely large and locatable only by radar, even he does not know of its current location when he goes out of it for a while. It has a hilariously hideous pink-and-purple color scheme inside and he refers to the central workstation as his 'throne room'. He also had his master bedroom's bed doubling as an escape pod, shaped like a smaller cocoon. Its internal defenses were personally designed by him, which may explain why Brock could easily nearly take it out single-handedly. He also had a car, the Monarch-mobile, also decked out in purple. Monarch once commanded a set of eighty-three henchmen all known solely by number (except for junior henchmen), and frequently killed them when he was in a bad mood, resulting in what looked like an inexhuastible supply. These men were out of shape, and none too terribly bright, and all defected to a villain named Monstroso while the Monarch was incarnerated. His new henchmen, mostly thugs, did not even dress in the proper henchmen uniform and were far more aggressive, but still easily beatable. His costume allows for him to spread out giant wings and fly, and he also has two wristbands that shoot out a number of tranquilizer darts (though at times the darts are depicted as lethal), which he depends on extensively. Notes *The Monarch is very loosely based on the Black Manta. The Monarch's voice comes from the fact that both Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer were under the impression that Black Manta had a shrill voice and yelled frequently. *In more general terms, The Monarch is a parody of comic book villains such as Black Manta, The Penguin, and The Cheetah, that choose to model their personas after creatures. The Monarch is apparently unaware that the butterflies he loves are neither deadly nor considered even mildly threatening by most people. *Oddly, Dr. Venture and the Monarch share some similar physical traits - red hair, beards, and thin builds. Dr. Girlfriend mentions in Midlife Chrysalis that the two have a lot in common. If these are clues or co-incidences has not been explored. Category:The Venture Bros. characters